Multimedia hard drive....what format for films?

herewegoagain2010

I hope someone would be kind enough to explain the best format to save dvd films onto a hard drive. I'm fed-up swopping and changing the dvds for the children. My plan is to keep them for the car, but download them all onto the drive for tv use. What's the best way to set the hard drive up and do i need to convert the dvd's before I put them on?

Thanks in advance

qw3rt7

If your goal is to genuinely make your life easier, then trying to (probably illegally) rip copy protected dvd's onto a harddrive is not going to help!
It is of course possible, and not too complicated, but certainly alot harder than swapping dvd's!

CHR15

Depends what you are playing the on (laptop??)

If so, you could convert the DVD into DIVX files. Typically a 4.7Gb DVD will rip down to about 750Mb and be a simple file to double click to run in WMP.

kwikbreaks

qw3rt7 wrote: »

If your goal is to genuinely make your life easier, then trying to (probably illegally) rip copy protected dvd's onto a harddrive is not going to help!
It is of course possible, and not too complicated, but certainly alot harder than swapping dvd's!

Spot on response.

Parenting gets really hard these days though - I never had all that hassle swapping DVDs when I was a father 30 or so years ago all I had to do was talk and play with the little devils.

dipsy

on another but same vein question...

I want to back all my DVD's onto a Hard drive Multimedia set up for my front room will of course keep the origionals in the attic to prove I own them.....

what is the most cost effective way to do this, want to be able to scroll through on tv screen through a catalogue of films

what storage method would you recommend and how would I set about getting all the films onto a Hard drive?

would I then hook up said h/d multimedia to TV via HDMI?

any pointers welcomed.. thanks

herewegoagain2010

It was a honest question on how to store films onto a multi media drive. We live in a different country to our families and having the hard drive, would mean that we wouldn't have to wind up Grandad's video to watch the Mr men video again! I like the idea of having all the films in one place for ease of use as it can be taken and films watched on either a tv of laptop. I own all the dvd's so not looking to stock up on dodgy rip-offs either, just trying to sort out the dvds getting thrown 'round the living room and stream-line the storage too. Thanks for your replies.

Aiadi

I store my DVDs onto a hard drive (straight rip so no quality loss as big drives are quite affordable now), got myself one of these babies:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167205

Connected the HD to it and never looked back since. The remote is a bit flimsy but I am using one of the universal harmony remote controls instead.

Aiadi

bat999 wrote: »

Hi
I don't know what the 'best' format is.

The best format would be the one that offers the best quality for the amount of storage space available;) (and that obviously varies depending on one's particular circumstances). If space is not an issue, then store at the highest quality format possible (VOB DVD rips in this instance).

i8change

For best quality use DVDFab HD Decrypter to copy the DVD's to a portable Hard Drive:-

DVDFab HD Decrypter

Just copy the "Main Movie" and change the default settings so it copies to (your) hard drive and DVD9 rather than DVD5, which will compress the copy to fit a single sided DVD (4.38GB.)
If your PC DVD Drive is in DMA mode the copying will take 7-14 minutes approx, it will be 30 minutes or more if only in PIO mode.

Then connect the portable Hard Drive with all your DVD's to something like this to display them on TV:-

Western Digital TV Media Player

As Hard Drives are getting cheaper it is probably not worth messing about compressing them to other formats. Even a 500GB Drive will hold around 100 Movies and the 1TB ones are getting cheaper now.

Doing this is not that simple, although fairly easy when you have become familiar. The advantage being that your DVD collection doesn't get scratched by the children.
Have fun

Aiadi

i8change wrote: »

DVD9 rather than DVD5, which will compress the copy to fit a single sided DVD (4.38GB.)
QUOTE]
Compress = Quality loss. I agree though that DVDFab Decrypter is a good choice if you want to do so.

custardy

dipsy wrote: »

on another but same vein question...

I want to back all my DVD's onto a Hard drive Multimedia set up for my front room will of course keep the origionals in the attic to prove I own them.....

what is the most cost effective way to do this, want to be able to scroll through on tv screen through a catalogue of films

what storage method would you recommend and how would I set about getting all the films onto a Hard drive?

would I then hook up said h/d multimedia to TV via HDMI?

any pointers welcomed.. thanks

depends on what you have

all my movies are held on internal/external drives
these are connected to a PC in the living room
i have a PS3 under the telly,the PS3 is networked to the PC
i use the PS3 to browse/view the files on the PC